Pune Metro pillars along the Shivajinagar-Khadki corridor are exposing a larger weakness in the way the city plans transport infrastructure: the viaduct has been designed as a transit project, but the road space beneath and around it has not consistently been designed as a complete street. In Khadki, Bopodi and Shivajinagar, vehicles, pedestrians, buses, autorickshaws and two-wheelers are being forced through narrow and frequently changing spaces, particularly near stations, junctions and underpasses.
The problem described in Civic Mirror’s inspection is not simply that a few pillars occupy road space. It is that the pillars sit within already constrained corridors where railway infrastructure, bus services, metro stations, underpasses, footpaths and private vehicles converge. At several locations, the available carriageway narrows suddenly, leaving motorists to negotiate around columns, other vehicles and roadside infrastructure with little spare room. The resulting congestion is most visible during peak hours, when even a small obstruction can slow traffic behind it.
This distinction matters because transport infrastructure is often assessed by the capacity of its primary system: the number of metro stations, the length of a corridor or the number of passengers it can carry. The experience of a city, however, is also shaped by the space around that system. A metro station that improves movement over a distance can still create friction at street level if passengers cannot cross the road safely, buses and autorickshaws cannot approach it efficiently, or the remaining road lanes change width without a clear operating pattern.
Khadki presents the most concentrated version of this challenge. The railway station, bus services and metro station are located close to one another, making the area an important interchange for passengers. Yet the same concentration of transport modes increases pressure on a limited road network. The report says that traffic becomes particularly difficult around the Khadki metro and railway stations, as pedestrians and vehicles converge while the road narrows near metro pillars and underpasses.
The issue is therefore one of urban coordination as much as road capacity. Pranjali Deshpande, identified in the report as a sustainable transport expert, said that the entire corridor must be considered rather than isolated stretches where additional space may be available. Her point is fundamental to street planning: if a road expands from two lanes to three and then returns to two, the wider section does not necessarily increase the corridor’s effective capacity. The narrowest point can determine how traffic behaves along the entire stretch.
This type of discontinuity creates conflict between road users. Two-wheelers may attempt to pass through the gap between pillars and larger vehicles, only to merge again into moving traffic. Cars, buses and autorickshaws occupy more road width, while pedestrians may be pushed towards vehicle lanes when a pillar or other obstruction interrupts a footpath or crossing. The report describes vehicles moving close to metro columns and larger vehicles, leaving little room for lane changes or evasive movement.
Deshpande has argued that each pillar should have a defined buffer zone and that the space between consecutive pillars should be managed consistently. Without such planning, the gaps become informal passageways for two-wheelers rather than clearly separated parts of the street. That creates a conflict point at the place where riders must re-enter the main traffic stream. The problem is not only congestion; it is the absence of a predictable movement pattern in a corridor where different users have sharply different space and safety requirements.
Pedestrian movement is an equally important part of the problem. The report cites Deshpande as saying that metro pillars should not obstruct pedestrian crossings. If a crossing leads directly towards a pillar, pedestrians may have to divert towards a junction or find their own route around the obstruction. In areas near stations, this can force people to negotiate with moving traffic at precisely the locations where large numbers of passengers are expected to walk.
That design failure is especially serious around multimodal interchanges. Passengers arriving by train may need to reach a bus, metro service, autorickshaw or private vehicle within a short distance. The quality of the interchange depends not only on the proximity of the stations but also on whether the transfer can be completed safely and legibly. Deshpande said Khadki requires proper multimodal integration covering infrastructure, passenger information and fares, so that commuters can move between modes easily and safely.
The report also highlights the pressure created by underpasses. The Khadki railway underpass is already a narrow corridor, and the presence of metro pillars further limits the space available for vehicles travelling in opposite directions or attempting to turn. Manoj Patil, additional commissioner of police for Pune’s western and traffic divisions, said the police were preparing a proposal to make the Khadki railway underpass and the Poultry underpass one-way. The Poultry underpass is also known as the Range Hills railway underpass or Poultry Farm underpass.
A one-way arrangement could reduce opposing vehicle conflicts in these narrow sections, but the report presents it as a proposal under preparation rather than an implemented measure. Its feasibility would require a detailed traffic study, including the effect on adjoining roads, junctions, emergency access, pedestrian movement and traffic diverted to other routes. The available report does not establish the study’s findings or an implementation timetable. What it does establish is that the police are considering operational changes after the physical arrangement has already created recurring congestion.
This sequence points to a wider institutional issue. Metro construction typically involves decisions about alignment, piers, stations and engineering constraints. Street design involves lane continuity, turning radii, medians, pedestrian crossings, drainage, footpaths, bus access and the relationship between plot boundaries. When these decisions are taken separately, the metro may be technically complete while the street becomes harder to use.
Deshpande said road and street-design specialists should participate when a metro alignment is finalised. She distinguished conventional road engineering, which considers elements such as turns, medians and gradients, from street design, which considers the entire space between one property boundary and another. That broader view is particularly important in established urban corridors where the available width cannot simply be expanded after construction.
The conflict between infrastructure and existing urban features is also visible in the report’s discussion of trees. A Maharashtra Vriksha Samvardhini activist said that trees are often treated as obstructions when they stand in the way of road or development work, while metro pillars placed in the middle of a road are not treated in the same way. The comment raises a question about how public agencies define and evaluate obstacles: whether the issue is the object itself, or the planning decision that allowed a permanent structure to occupy a critical part of the public right of way.
The commuter accounts indicate that the consequences are measured in time as well as frustration. Mukesh Chaudhary, who travels near Khadki metro station, said the railway underpass, continuously flowing rainwater and metro pillars together add 30 to 45 minutes to his daily travel during working days. The report does not provide an independent travel-time survey, so this figure should be understood as a commuter account rather than a corridor-wide measurement. It nevertheless illustrates how small design constraints can become a substantial daily cost when experienced by people travelling through the same bottleneck repeatedly.
Other commuters cited in the report described worsening conditions when four-wheelers enter the junctions and called for coordinated action by the Pune Municipal Corporation, MahaMetro and the district administration. Their demands reflect the fragmented responsibility behind the corridor. The metro agency may control the viaduct and stations, the municipal corporation may control roads and footpaths, the traffic police may manage movement and restrictions, and the district administration may be involved in coordination and land-related decisions. Without a shared street-level plan, each agency can address its own asset while leaving the combined system difficult to use.
The concern extends beyond the existing corridor. Deshpande specifically called for street design to be prepared alongside the proposed Pimpri-Nigdi and Vanaz-Chandni Chowk metro extensions. She said pillars should be kept away from junctions and pedestrian crossings, while connections with other transport modes should be planned in advance. The significance of this argument is that future metro expansion offers an opportunity to change the sequence of decision-making: first understand the whole corridor, then place the infrastructure within it, rather than attempting to repair conflicts after the pillars are built.
Pune’s current problem is therefore not evidence that metro infrastructure is inherently incompatible with roads. It is evidence that the success of elevated transit depends on the quality of the public realm below it. The report confirms recurring congestion, difficult pedestrian movement, narrow underpasses, inconsistent lane space and proposed traffic-management responses in Shivajinagar, Bopodi and Khadki. It also records a clear institutional lesson from transport specialists and commuters: a metro corridor cannot be planned independently of the street corridor it occupies.
The next developments to watch are the Pune Police proposal for one-way operation at the Khadki and Poultry underpasses, any corridor-wide traffic study, and whether the PMC, MahaMetro and district administration produce a joint street-design and multimodal-integration plan. Until those steps are documented, the immediate question remains unresolved: whether Pune will treat the space around its metro pillars as an afterthought, or as an essential part of the transport system itself.
